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MONTPELLIER - Springbok coach Jake White has issued Australian rugby with a come and plunder South Africa's burgeoning rugby talent as the Wallabies look to boost their shallow player depth ahead of the next World Cup.
Australian Rugby Union high performance manager Pat Howard reportedly said on Saturday Australia is looking at unearthing more young South Africans like Dan Vickerman and Clyde Rathbone in the buildup to the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.
Australia has had great success poaching young Springboks into its ranks, with lock Vickerman a member of the current national squad and outside back Rathbone forced out of World Cup selection reckoning through injury.
But White is far from alarmed at the prospect of Australian rugby enticing some of the best young South African rugby talent to its future playing ranks.
"That's part of professional sport. The reality is that not every South African superstar is going to be playing for South Africa," White said.
"You couldn't be sure that Clyde Rathbone and Dan Vickerman would have become Springboks, I think they would have, but in the context maybe they may not have been picked by another coach and maybe they wouldn't have been given an opportunity in another province.
"The one thing we do have is a huge amount of talent and we have so much talent because we have so many good rugby schools and so many boys who want to be professional rugby players.
"It's not just Australia. You have Matt Stevens who is playing for England, Chad Erskine playing for America, Pieter de Villiers playing for France, so what I'm saying is, 'would they have all played for South Africa?'
"Some of them wouldn't have made it and I can understand Pat Howard. The reality is that they probably see it as an opportunity for players who are not going to get exposed to play there."
White, who is preparing for his 50th consecutive Test as Springboks' coach in Monday's World Cup match with United States in Montpellier, said there was no way of preventing Australia from plundering promising potential Springboks.
"You can't stop it. You can't contract every single rising star that there is in South Africa, you can't do that," he said.
White said the plan of the South African government to establish a quota system to ensure a set number of black players are selected for the Springboks will make no difference.
"I don't believe that Howard will only pick white kids. I would be very amazed if Australia is saying that it's the quota system and therefore they can take all the white kids who aren't going to make because there will be enough black kids coming through," he said.
"I'm sure the black kids will be approached by Australia's high performance centre as well.
"Now if you got a Schalk Burger who's 24, Fourie du Preez who's 25 and Bryan Habana 24, JP Pietersen 21, in reality the younger players have got to go somewhere and they can't wait for everyone to move on."
White couldn't help himself with a little sly dig at Australian rugby.
"We aren't in that situation where we want to go to Australia and bring guys back, because we're quite fortunate, but, tongue in cheek, we go and fetch ex-Australian coaches."
Former Wallabies' coach Eddie Jones has been co-opted as a consultant to White in the Springboks' coaching team at the World Cup.
- AFP
